A photo posted by cavanreaganreichmann (@cavanreaganreichmann) on Jan 18, 2015 at 3:24pm PST

Roasting vegetables is a go-to winter move in our house. Adding a splash of beer never hurts, either. And by splash, I mean a bottle or two. That’s why we’ve taken to a one-pot vegetable dish that lets us combine our love of vegetables, beer, LeCreuset and fancy things that did not require as much effort as they would appear.

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I like breaking out the ice cream maker to make boozy sorbet for parties.* New Year’s had me thinking about this Pink Grapefruit Champagne Sorbet.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker, you can also make a granita by throwing the same ingredients into a baking dish, then freezing it and scraping it down with a fork every 30 minutes.

If you don’t have the time to make a granita, there’s still good news: You can just throw the bottle of champagne into the ice cream maker about 25 minute before midnight and you’ll have a champagne slushy to serve.

If you don’t have an ice cream maker or the time to make a granita, just be honest with yourself and drink the bottle of champagne alone.

Remember: Anyone can drink a bottle of champagne. Let’s eat one.

*At times, parties of one.

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When our friend Tonya came to visit for the weekend, we wanted to make some really special dishes using one of her favorite ingredients, leading us to cilantro hummus and cilantro chutney. Tonya is one of our dearest friends and, as such, these visits often lead to a dramatic reading from “I Could Pee On This” while wearing a mixing bowl as a hat in the bathtub and kicking us in the shins if she doesn’t like the meal we’ve prepared. So we also wanted to make sure we had a fancy cocktail to distract her in case she didn’t like the dishes.

Good news: She likes all three takes on cilantro, and we hope you do, too.

That business about her kicking us in the shins is not true. She would never do such a thing. She kicks us in the face.

Cilantro Hummus

What to Have

fresh cilantro (one bunch), hard stems removed

1 cans chickpeas

1 jalapeno pepper

2 cloves garlic

2 tablespoons fresh lime juice

salt and pepper

What to DoCombine half the cilantro and all other ingredients in food processor. Blend until smooth. Add more cilantro to taste.

Cilantro Chutney

What to Have

1 bunch fresh cilantro

1 serrano pepper, some seeds removed

1/4 cup chopped white onion

1/4 cup olive oil

1/4 cup fresh lime juice

1 teaspoon sugar

1 teaspoon salt

What to DoPulse all ingredients in blender. Leave some coarseness.

Absolut Cilantro Martini

What to Have

Absolut Cilantro

Coconut Water

Mango Nectar

Lime

Cilantro

What to DoCombine two parts Absolute Cilantro, one part coconut water, one part mango nectar and a squeeze of lime juice in a cocktail shaker. Shake vigorously. Pour into glass and serve with a cilantro sprig.

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I’ve missed you, but I’m coming back soon with an all-new kitchen and camera gear. The jokes and husband remain the same.

After the last time we got together, Scott and I both started new jobs and and took a few months to build a home. Our time together, while always so special, was put on the — get ready for it — back burner. Like cooking. Like when you’re cooking and you put something on the back burner. Because I cook in the videos. You get it, right?

Yeah, you get it.

We designed the kitchen to be camera-friendly, but I was in need of new gear. Enter the Founders’ Grant, an award from my home away from home, Spong and Carmichael Lynch, sister PR and advertising agencies based in Minneapolis and owned by Interpublic Group. The grant, designed to empower an employee to execute a creative idea, was used to purchase video equipment for the blog. The agencies do work with a number of national brands, but, unless otherwise stated, content here is not sponsored or influenced by business relationships I have with those brands.

With the grant, I’ve been able to get a tripod, camera and mic back in the kitchen to again document the goings-on behind the counter. We’ve been filming and getting things ready, including new design work from the talented Whitley Mike.

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We’ve pitted salad against salad, green beans against corn, corn against couscous, and our livers against vodka. It’s hard to imagine us having a better time together than our Thanksgiving Side-Dish Face-Off.

I started this as a way to narrow down how many dishes we’re making, as we did make 19 dishes last year. Then I promptly fell in love with every recipe I found and clung to them for dear life, only cutting some from the list after realizing that we would certainly die if we made and ate all 47 of the great dishes I found.

So a few things had to go:

I love you Kale and Brussels Sprout Salad, winner of our salad round, but filling the table and our guts with all those gigantic leaves just didn’t seem right. There’s butter to be eaten, kale. Thanksgiving is just not your day.

And you, Israeli Couscous with Asparagus and Butternut Squash. I’ve talked about you for weeks. I’ve bragged about you to people who have to feign interest. But I had to cut someone, and Green Bean Casserole has been part of Thanksgiving since the dawn of time, if I understand the pilgrims’ history correctly.

After spending a bit of time looking up fancy green bean casserole recipes — au gratin, lemon, horseradish, chestnuts — I realized was going about things the wrong way. If I really want to stack up a traditional Thanksgiving side dish, I have to make it like most Americans would, right? The classic way — frozen beans, condensed cream of mushroom soup and wonderful, wonderful fried onions.

Of course, if you’re looking to impress on Thursday, green bean casserole isn’t going to win you any awards for creativity. But it’s pretty much guaranteed it will be devoured, and those points count more anyway.

In my side-dish quest, though, I wanted to stack it up against two other dishes: one that was new to me and one that’s a modern take with familiar ingredients.

Corn Pudding: I finally know what Foghorn Leghorn is talking about in the car insurance commercial I don't like.

And that’s how I met corn pudding. Again, this was another blind spot in my knowledge of Thanksgiving side dishes. I wanted to try a corn casserole or a spoonbread this year, and corn pudding seemed like a good mashup.

Corn pudding is not unlike a really soft cornbread with the sweetness built right in. It requires a bit more work than green bean casserole — I know, I know: more work than putting ingredients in a dish and baking? But stuck with me — from making a corn puree to whipping eggs to soft peaks. But after that, you’re right back to putting-ingredients-in-a-dish-and-baking.

The texture and flavor were quite nice, and it scores a few points for impressing guests, too, at least because it’s a throwback for some and a new idea to others. I was pretty sure it was making the cut for my Thanksgiving menu. Here’s the recipe I used.

Finally, I wanted to take some familiar fall ingredients and introduce them to something you would’t expect at the Thanksgiving table. My idea: Israeli couscous with asparagus and butternut squash.

I have a bit of a problem with pearled couscous. I can plow through a Costco bag of it in a few days. I guess that’s true of almost anything, though, so perhaps I’m learning more about myself here than about couscous.

Anyhow, I’ve been making this dish for a few weeks now and love it. I roast the butternut squash with a little brown sugar, sautee the asparagus, cook the couscous in vegetable broth … then throw them all together with some lemon juice and olive oil. Easy. Delicious. Healthy. Oh my. It’s a bit of a shock how flavorful the couscous gets when you cook it in broth. That flavors plays well with the asparagus, and balance nicely with the squash and citrus. Here’s the recipe I started with.

Each dish could earn a spot at your Thanksgiving table, depending on what your ultimate goal is.

If you’re looking for something easy, rich, nostalgic and sure to be a crowd pleaser: Green Bean Casserole

If you want to try something new but still traditional, and get some pats on the back for your culinary prowess: Corn Pudding

If you want to impress people with something new (or something healthy, depending on your crowd): Israeli Couscous with Asparagus and Butternut Squash